In December 2021, in the Catalogue of Disciplines for the Conferment of Doctoral and Master's Degrees and Talent Training (Draft for Comments) issued by the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, calligraphy and fine arts were listed as first-level disciplines of "fine arts and calligraphy". As soon as the news came out, it caused a heated discussion.
The calligraphy community is full of jubilation, some people advocate that calligraphy should be listed separately, some people call for the establishment of a separate calligraphy academy as soon as possible; there is no shortage of controversy in the academic community, some people do not approve of the promotion of calligraphy to a first-level discipline, and some people question whether calligraphy is an art.
Is the contemporary book scene ready for disciplinary upgrading? What are the difficulties in the construction of calligraphy disciplines? How to see the current situation and vision of higher calligraphy education?
▲ Centennial Tree Man (calligraphy) 47×182 cm 1983 Sha Menghai
Upgrading means updating the higher challenges
"It's just a draft for comments, not a final decision." For those of us who are engaged in calligraphy, this is the result of years of hard work, but also the realization of long-term struggles and dreams. As soon as the draft for comments was launched, everyone rejoiced and rushed to tell each other. But if I stand in the position of a scholar, I will not be too easily agitated. Chen Zhenlian, vice chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and vice president of Xiling Printing Agency, said.
In an article, Chen Zhenlian said that the most comprehensive and in-depth ideological achievements he has devoted himself to in his life are positioned on the near-terminal academic goal of "building the discipline of calligraphy". "It is my wish that calligraphy can become a first-class discipline as soon as possible, and it is also the goal we have been striving for for 40 years." But we also don't want calligraphy to take advantage just because of the tilt of the policy, but to obtain it through our own efforts. At present, it seems that if we are not prepared enough, just blindly revelry, then there will be such suspicions. In the face of the carnival atmosphere, he admitted that this is precisely what it is worth worrying, "What does upgrading mean for our academics? What does it mean to ourselves? I think it's more stress, which means newer and higher challenges. ”
In the view of Zheng Xiaohua, deputy secretary and secretary general of the sub-party group of the China Calligraphers Association and professor of Chinese Min University, this seems to be an upgrading problem of disciplines, but it will actually have a significant impact on the entire calligraphy industry and industry. Because of the complex background of "Western learning and eastern learning" in the late 19th century and early 20th century, calligraphy originally did not have a "household registration" in the higher education discipline list, but only existed as a basic course under the Major of Chinese Painting. With the revival of traditional culture in the 1980s, calligraphy was able to enter the professional directory, which began as a professional direction under fine arts, equivalent to a third-level discipline; later, the discipline catalog was adjusted, and art studies became an independent discipline from the literary category, and the corresponding sub-disciplines were also upgraded, and the calligraphy majors of major art colleges and universities were also upgraded to second-level disciplines juxtaposed with major art disciplines such as Chinese painting, oil painting, and sculpture; now according to the draft for comments, calligraphy has risen to a first-level discipline juxtaposed with fine arts , representing another expansion of calligraphy. Taking fine arts as a contrast, after calligraphy becomes a first-level discipline, it covers more space, and it is worth pondering which second- and third-level disciplines will be set up. This is not simply moving the bones and stretching the arms, but growing in an all-round way.
Chen Lusheng, an art critic and former deputy director of the National Museum of China, bluntly said that the status of calligraphy in China's higher education should be objectively examined. The increasingly niche scope of writing should be within a certain limit, and if this profession becomes a first-level discipline, it will make people see the embarrassment of culture. "After calligraphy entered the college education in the middle and late 20th century, in order to promote its inheritance and development, it is indeed necessary to cultivate a small number of students in some majors through college education. However, after the expansion of the calligraphy major in recent years, we can see that the role and influence of students in society and the contribution to the cultural development of the whole society produced by this illegal way of education are very limited. Therefore, the professional education of calligraphy should be limited to a certain scope, and the actual share of calligraphy should be seen clearly within the overall scope of social culture, and the value and significance of the existence of calligraphy should be seen. ”
The discipline of calligraphy was founded and evolved
In the discussion on the upgrading of calligraphy disciplines, some important time nodes cannot be overlooked: in 1906, Li Ruiqing, then the superintendent of liangjiang normal school, opened a painting handicraft department in liangjiang normal school to advocate calligraphy and painting education; in 1918, Cai Yuanpei, then president of Peking University, proposed to "add a calligraphy specialty" in his "Speech at the Opening Ceremony of China's First National School of Fine Arts"; in 1943, the Chinese Calligraphy Research Association was established in Chongqing, and later the society founded the magazine "Calligraphy"; in 1963, In 1979, the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts set up the first master's degree in calligraphy education and enrolled 5 graduate students; in 1993, Capital Normal University set up the first doctoral program in the country to "Calligraphy and Art Education for Fine Arts Majors".
Today, there are more than 140 colleges and universities in the country that offer calligraphy majors, including more than 140 undergraduates, more than 80 master's students, and more than 20 doctoral students.
Chen Zhiping, professor of the School of Art of Jinan University and deputy director of the Institute of Calligraphy, said that in the past 30 years, the disciplinary attributes of calligraphy have undergone four major changes: first, in 2011, art science (including calligraphy) became independent from literature to become the thirteenth discipline; second, in 2012, the name of "calligraphy" as a secondary discipline affiliated with "fine arts" officially appeared; third, since 2012, the emphasis on practice-based calligraphy degree graduate education has quietly emerged Fourth, the 2021 Catalogue of Disciplines for The Conferment of Graduate Degrees and Talent Training lists "Fine Arts and Calligraphy" as a first-level discipline. These four major changes reflect the general trend of continuously increasing the specialization of calligraphy and the continuous improvement of the status of disciplines.
In the past, because there was no independent discipline or degree, calligraphy was long attached to related disciplines under the literary category, or was opened under philology, classical literature, art, fine arts, and art theory. Zheng Xiaohua believes that the pluralistic attribution of calligraphy disciplines has both advantages and disadvantages: the disadvantage is that it is not easy for calligraphy to form a unified discipline norm, because the disciplinary backgrounds on which they rely are different, it is bound to be affected or even restricted by related disciplines, so that some of the contents of the calligraphy discipline are restricted and weakened to some extent; the advantage is that calligraphy relies on the talents cultivated in the past thirty or forty years of different disciplines, and although its educational background is diverse, it greatly expands the academic horizons of students, and the knowledge of related disciplines is also constantly nourishing its growth and development.
"As far as the problems existing in the discipline itself, I think that the discipline is more serious - most of them focus on the study of the history of calligraphy, and pay less attention to calligraphy aesthetics and calligraphy theory, which makes the Chinese calligraphy community in the past 40 years have fewer talents who can have in-depth research in calligraphy theory and calligraphy aesthetics, and fewer scholars who can rank among the forefront of national academia in disciplinary research." The most obvious examples, such as the Lanting Prize, calligraphy seminars, research publications, etc., 80% or more are about the history of calligraphy, while there are too few high-quality theoretical and aesthetic research results, which reflects the serious defects in the discipline structure of calligraphy talent training in higher education. Zheng Xiaohua believes that the shortcomings of the discipline biased over history should not only arouse the great attention of the calligraphy community and major art schools, but also take the opportunity of the upgrading of the calligraphy discipline to promote the corresponding reform. Because speculative disciplines have not been developed, it is equivalent to the theoretical level of the disciplines has not been improved.
Liu Suoxiang, a member of the Education Committee of the Chinese Calligraphers Association and director of the Institute of Chinese Calligraphy History and Art of Taiyuan Normal University, believes that the hope of Chinese calligraphy is in the future and the hope of the future in education. "The discipline of calligraphy has received the attention of the state, which makes us more confident. Nowadays, higher calligraphy education already has a complete degree education system from bachelor's, master's to doctoral degree, and what we hope is that the basic education of calligraphy in primary and secondary schools can also keep up as soon as possible, thus forming a virtuous circle. ”
▲ Heart painting (calligraphy) 136×69 cm, 1958 Lu Weizhao
Discipline construction does not happen overnight
Not long ago, the 20 volumes of Chen Zhenlian's Academic Works collection were published, which is the crystallization of the author's 40 years of unremitting pen cultivation, and has also become an important witness to the construction of contemporary calligraphy disciplines. "I think that if calligraphy is recognized as an art, it should have its own disciplinary structure; there is flesh and blood, there is bone and body; if not, it is the stupidity of our generation." These writings are the result of a journey of ideas, the equivalent of a scientific expedition: a constant search for the unknown, a constant search for its core and bottom line. Chen Zhenlian said.
In Chen Zhenlian's view, in modern times, the generalized fine arts have always included calligraphy, but calligraphy has always been quite weak, and it is generally considered in society that it is a social and cultural skill that everyone must learn, rather than a way of artistic aesthetic expression. "There are still many well-known experts who believe that calligraphy is not art, and even threaten that if calligraphy becomes art, calligraphy will be broken. Some people also do the opposite, believing that the original accumulation of calligraphy is already very strong and cannot get rid of the shackles, so they advocate turning calligraphy into a pure thing like Western abstract art. These two extremes actually prove that in the process of establishing calligraphy as the basis of art, its essence and the subject itself have always been weak and erratic. In his words, calligraphy was forced into art. In the Internet era, typing with a keyboard, then voice, video, and then artificial intelligence, in this case calligraphy (Chinese characters) is not destroyed (or automatically disappeared), it has to fall into the embrace of art, and use it to protect itself. Such a contradictory state, in the process of the development of the discipline, there is no "fine art". If calligraphy is to become an important art discipline with "first-class" status today, it is urgent for contemporary calligraphers to change their concepts.
Zhu Tianshu, professor at Beijing Language and Culture University and executive dean of the China Institute of International Communication of Calligraphy, proposed that the position of calligraphy in the construction of contemporary disciplines should be accurately identified. Although calligraphy has been included in the compulsory education curriculum, contemporary Chinese calligraphy lacks traditional humanistic connotations and pursues techniques and forms too much. Calligraphy is a relatively comprehensive discipline, after the upgrading of the discipline, we need to update the framework of the discipline of calligraphy, abandon the blind teaching of techniques in teaching, emphasize participation in exhibitions, and thus neglect to strengthen the study of theoretical knowledge. How to balance the relationship between art and traditional culture has become the focus and difficulty of the construction of calligraphy disciplines.
"I have always emphasized that Chinese calligraphy has four qualities: technique, aesthetics, humanities and philosophy, which are progressive and complement each other. Chinese calligraphy has formed a unique aesthetic spirit and historical consciousness in traditional pen and ink techniques, and melted the essence of Chinese culture into the works. We learn the vivid brushwork of calligraphy, appreciate its inherent wonders, and reserve the relevant knowledge that can support calligraphy, such as ancient Chinese philology, philology, history, etc. Zhu Tianshu said, "If Chinese culture is likened to a big tree, then calligraphy is an important one." Culture is always the root of calligraphy, and it can make the discipline of calligraphy grow healthily. Art itself is the flower and fruit of the tree, and the training of techniques is nourished by cultural knowledge, so that the discipline of calligraphy can be deeply rooted. ”
How to break through the bottleneck of professional development
Chen Zhiping believes that the ideal calligraphy discipline should be both literary and artistic, excellent in art and learning, and humanistic, but it is difficult to take care of it now, which is a common problem after the modernization of the modern education system, especially in the context of the higher education sub-discipline system. The absence of "literature" in "art" has become a new bottleneck restricting the development of calligraphy professions.
"If the discipline of calligraphy does not take the elite route, does not pay attention to improving the connotation and quality, and relies too much on the improvement of the external environment, it may cause a larger area of 'collapse'." Chen Zhiping expressed his hidden worries. The upgrading of the discipline of calligraphy is generally beneficial to the development of calligraphy, and the question now is how we deal with the challenges ahead. "First, the upgrading of disciplines will further stimulate the increase in the number of calligraphy majors. Education could not have made the Great Leap Forward, could not replace quality with quantity, and replaced real improvement with false prosperity. Second, the whole society does not need so many calligraphers, and the need for academic in-depth study of traditional culture, the cost of talent training is high, the front line is long, and under the general trend of art separating from literature and history, theory and practice, it is difficult for the elite of the calligraphy industry to produce. If the quantity is increasing, but there is no breakthrough in quality, it may exacerbate the trend of low-end industry. ”
Li Xinmo, a professor and artist at Geely College, believes that in general, calligraphy is still a relatively closed system, and there are not many intersections and interactions with other disciplines, and calligraphy is often excluded from art exhibitions and evaluation systems, and only as a system that continues the traditional vein of calligraphy. How to get calligraphy out of the predicament and revitalize itself may be one of the most important issues to be faced after the upgrading of the discipline of calligraphy. The key to solving this problem is to see whether calligraphy can get out of its own limitations and molds, intersect and integrate with other disciplines and different types of art forms. She proposed that calligraphy should be re-examined from the larger framework of art and a new frame of reference should be reconstructed. Open up the combination of calligraphy and design, so that calligraphy into people's daily lives. Instead of letting calligraphy go back to the past and emulating a lost mode of writing, it takes people's current lives as the starting point to reactivate the life and vitality of calligraphy.
Zhu Shuai, deputy director and researcher of Peking University Library, said bluntly that many people in the current academic circles regard "calligraphy as a first-level discipline" as a kind of "raising eyebrows" for the status of practitioners, while ignoring the fundamental purpose of the adjustment of the discipline catalog is to better cultivate talents. "At the end of the day, the subject catalog is for the admission and training of master's and doctoral students. What is important is not the change of the name, but how to explore the establishment of a better postgraduate training mechanism after the promotion of the status of the discipline, and optimize the existing training method of calligraphy talents, which is the 'original intention' of the adjustment of the discipline catalog and the upgrading of calligraphy. ”
Zhu Shuai believes that taking the opportunity of the upgrading of calligraphy, the master's degree and doctoral degree holders of calligraphy majors undertake the popularization of calligraphy aesthetic education in society, which is different from professional education, which is reflected in the extension of calligraphy, calligraphy can be extended to font design, logo design and other application fields, but the premise is that it is necessary to cultivate an audience that understands calligraphy and understands calligraphy through calligraphy aesthetic education in other fields and even in the whole society. "After the upgrading of the discipline of calligraphy, the cultivation of talents closely related to it must also be upgraded - there must be a qualitative improvement in the quality of training, and it is necessary to expand from professional talents to the public in terms of training objects." Otherwise, this kind of discipline upgrading can only be a 'face project' that is not worthy of the name. As a first-level discipline, calligraphy must be cultivated so that the professionals cultivated must have the core competitiveness that other majors do not have. Zhu Shuai said.
Can calligraphy and fine arts be merged into first-level disciplines?
Zhu Zhongyuan
Not long ago, a draft of a consultation draft on the awarding of doctoral and master's degrees and the cultivation of talents by the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council aroused strong concern and discussion in the calligraphy community, and many people in the calligraphy circle cheered. However, I am cautiously optimistic about this issue. This is only a draft for comment, which has not yet been officially released, and whether calligraphy and fine arts can be merged as first-level disciplines, and whether the logic in it can be self-consistent is still a question worth studying.
And let's leave aside the subject issues, just talk about basic common sense.
Basic common sense is the professional problem of fine arts. Fine art is a big concept. Since the birth of this concept or category, fine arts include a number of arts such as painting, calligraphy, sculpture, architectural art, arts and crafts, etc., and in terms of tools and materials, painting can be subdivided into Chinese painting, oil painting, printmaking, murals, watercolors, gouache, comics, comic strips, etc. That is to say, fine art has always been a large category, a big concept, and calligraphy has been classified as a category of fine arts. This division has long been recognized by the academic and artistic circles and cannot be changed.
Even in the early years of the Republic of China, "fine art" was not only an artistic concept since the beginning of Japan's introduction to China, but also an academic concept. The academic concept of fine arts is aesthetics. That is, the beginning of aesthetics, that is, fine art. The term "fine arts" was first translated from Japanese by Liang Qichao and others, and has since been widely used in China to denote the meaning of aesthetics or beauty. In the aesthetic treatises of Liang Qichao, Wang Guowei and others, the word "aesthetics" is not used, but "beauty" or "fine art", that is, "fine art" is used instead of "aesthetics". Liang Qichao believes: "Beauty is an element of human life, or the most important of all kinds of elements. This passage was expressed by Liang Qichao in his article "Art and Life", that is, the "beauty" that Liang Qichao refers to here refers to fine art. In Liang Qichao's view, there are three major categories of art: one is literature, the other is music (which also includes dance), and the third is fine arts. And fine art naturally includes calligraphy. Liang Qichao's brief description is very accurate, undisputed and unchangeable. He also particularly emphasized: "Fine arts, which are recognized by the world as drawings, sculptures, and architecture. In addition to these three kinds, there is another kind in China, which is writing. There is also a difference between good and bad writing for foreigners, but it can be said that there is absolutely no such thing as writing as an art. Liang Qichao specifically mentioned writing, that is, calligraphy. He said that calligraphy is a kind of fine art, and it is a very special kind, which has laid a special position for calligraphy as an independent art or discipline. Therefore, it can be said that calligraphy is both subordinate to the category of fine arts and independent.
Of course, it is not only Liang Qichao who includes calligraphy in the category of fine arts, but also scholars such as Kang Youwei, Wang Guowei, Cai Yuanpei, Chen Duxiu, Lu Xun, Lü Peng, Xu Beihong, Zhang Yinlin and so on. This is not a profound academic question, but a basic common sense. This time, I reviewed the remarks of Liang Qichao and others, but it was only for the sake of re-emphasis.
The fine art mentioned by Liang Qichao here is of course not exactly the same thing as what we call fine art today, but it also contains the connotation of what we call fine art today, and it also contains aesthetics. That is to say, the study of aesthetics or aesthetics must start from the fine arts, must take the fine arts as the premise and purpose, and must be inseparable from the fine arts.
Leaving aside the views of Liang Qichao and others, how can art be considered fine art? What exactly is fine art? In all things in the world, all human beings can use artistic means and with the help of certain tools and materials to depict, portray, and create all visual works of art based on the expression of beauty. In other words, as long as it is different from language art (literature), auditory art (music), and physical art (dance), it can be fine arts. It is only natural, then, that calligraphy should be included in the category of fine arts.
Conversely, calligraphy does not belong to the category of fine arts, but what other categories can it be classified into? Of course not. It can be neither literature nor music (or dance).
Some people say that calligraphy is calligraphy, and it can exist completely independently. Right. That's exactly what I want to say. The same is true as a discipline. The crux of the matter is that not only calligraphy, but painting, sculpture, architecture, etc., can exist as an independent discipline. Therefore, when expressing or establishing disciplines, it is possible not to mention art, although they all belong to the category of fine arts. But when art is mentioned, the problem of its subordination must be solved.
The reason for this is that there is also a basic conceptual analysis problem here. Can calligraphy be independent of the fine arts? Neither, nor can it. The reason why it is said that it is not possible is because art and calligraphy are subordinate rather than juxtaposed. Fine art is a big concept and a big category, and calligraphy is one of the categories of fine art. But from another point of view, calligraphy is a special kind of art, which is different from painting, sculpture, architecture and other kinds of art, with particularity and independence. Therefore, calligraphy can be independently regarded as an art and discipline. However, according to this logic, painting, sculpture, and architecture can be independently of first-level disciplines.
Furthermore, if there is no problem with "fine art and calligraphy" as a first-level discipline, then it means that there is no problem in saying that there is no problem with the expression of disciplines such as "fine art and painting", "fine art and sculpture", "fine art and architecture", etc. But it is clear that there is a fundamental logical problem with this formulation. To use an analogy, art and calligraphy used to be a father-son relationship, but now it has become a brotherly relationship. The question is, how can a father-son relationship become a brotherly relationship?
Of course, I am not opposed to calligraphy as a first-level discipline, but point out that if you want to improve the status of calligraphy as a discipline, you must first solve the problem of logical self-consistency and solve the problem of subordination between the two. In fact, it is completely possible to express "calligraphy" as an independent discipline, and even as a first-level discipline. Of course, the premise is that the educational, academic, and calligraphy circles need to reach a complete consensus.
(The author is an art historian)
February 20, 2022 China Culture Daily
The 3rd edition featured a special report
The Discipline of Calligraphy: Considerations for Upgrading,
Can calligraphy and fine arts be merged into first-level disciplines? 》
Editor-in-charge: Chen Xiaoyue